Experts From A Tactician's Journal
by GravityEmblem
Summary: An extremely snarky Tactician awakes without any memory in an unfamiliar world. So, what does he do? Start a diary! (Updates Every Monday)
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: All of the characters, weapons, plots, or other miscellaneous things from Awakening are Intelligent System's/Nintendo's. James and his snarky comments are not, however.

...

 _April 2nd, 2611_

 _So, diary, you're probably wondering why I'm writing in you. That can be answered by one word (a hackneyed story device, 7 letters): amnesia. Well, more accurately, 24 words: I got amnesia, was found by some "shepards," fought some brigands with them, saved the town, etc., etc., and now I'm their Tactictian. I was having this weird dream about a guy with a goatee when I awoke to three expectant faces: a guy with blue hair, a blonde girl with buttons in_ her _hair, and a grumpy guy with heavy armor and completely nondescript hair. I thanked the blue-haired guy using his name (which I knew for some reason), and he acted like it was completely normal for some random stranger to know his name. I promptly corrected him, of course. He introduced me to his sister, Buttons-Girl, and his buddy, Mr. Grumpy. The latter, by the way, wrongly insisted that I was some sort of spy, although I have to applaud him for recognizing how ridiculous of a trope amnesia is._

 _They told me they were "Shepherds," which is probably some sort of metaphor. Seriously, who tends sheep in full armor? They were discussing what to do with me when brigands set some town on fire. Great, more hackneyed tropes. Of course, not being evil, the three "shepherds" ran off to help their sheep. Their_ allegorical _sheep. (I know that's not what I said before, but I've already used...that word far too many times in succession.) Now, I wasn't sure whether or not I was evil, but my tactical knowledge was coming back to me, and I'd rather help three people who I just met than smelly bandits. Plus, Grumpy looked ready to destroy me on a moment's notice._

 _When I got there, I immediately started giving orders. Blueboy was instructed to attack this guy with his sword, and I zapped him to finish him off. Nothing like a little electricity to start the day. Buttons couldn't fight anybody, but she did have a healing staff, which was handy to have around. Grumpy looked like he could defeat everyone singlehandedly, so I had him stand in a corner. The rest of the fight basically went on like than; me or the other guy would weaken a guy, the other would finish them off; the his sister would stay close and heal us if we were hurt; Grumps came along and stabbed people who we really needed dead. Mages, for example. Those guys can be seriously detrimental to your health-unless you have a natural resistance to sorcery, like me. Or Little Miss Button, but I don't think she could take more than one hit anyway. After we defeated all of his cronies, the bandit leader refused to move, so I had my soldiers scavenge the battlefield for useful objects while I had a bit of light reading. We charged the boss, nonchalantly stabbed him, and saved the townspeople._

 _Mr. Grumpy wouldn't let us stop for dinner, so we set off to the road at sundown. We traveled a mile or two, then set up camp to rest. Boy Blue and I caught a bear, cooked its flesh, and ate it. Not bad, if I do say so myself. Everyone else has gone to bed, so once I finish this journal entry, I need to put out the campfire and try to sleep._

 _..._

 _OK, going to bed now._

 _~James Whatever_


	2. Chapter 2

...

 _April 3, 2611_

 _Oh boy, last night was a doozy. I was having a very weird dream about an incompetent redhead and a guy who kept repeating the same thing over and over when I was awakened by the screechy sound of Ponytails screaming. I woke up Grumpy, and we ran toward the direction of the sound. Well, I ran. He rode. Lucky stiff...when we arrived, a good portion of the forest was on fire, and there were these creepy dead soldiers walking around. Immediately, I started giving orders: Cool-Sword-Guy ran into a fort that someone left lying around, as did I; Guy-With-A-Horse stayed out of enemy range but just on the edge, along with Buttons. The zombie-things came at us, but both of us fort-buddies came ready to deal with axes. Bluey dodged the attack, and while I got hit, there some medical supplies in the fort, and I was able to chug down part of a vulnerary before went to zap my opponent._

 _Before I could do so, however, some more guys ran into the battlefield. There was another cavalier (who looked as if she could_ actually grow _from defeating enemies) and this philandering archer who proposed prematurely to her and promptly received a kick to the face. Flashy, I noticed, was somehow unable to attack at point-blank range, didn't seem very strong, and wore almost no armor. I'll try giving him a chance, but if he doesn't do well, I won't hesitate to fire him. Anyway, I had him weaken up a sword-wielding zombie so that Red could finish him off...actually, do zombies have genders? Never mind, I don't think anyone_ really _wants to know._

 _We continued murdering soldiers that had already died until the leader came up to us. I was as surprised as anyone else that this one actually had the sense to move. He was was, luckily enough, hearty enough to survive one hit from Grumpous Maximus, leaving Ms. Red the Impaler to take the kill. Afterward, I learned that the zombies came out of a big portal in the sky, and that a mysterious warrior had saved Boy Blue's sister from them. She introduced herself as Marth, which is apparently the name of an ancient hero-king, and gave us a vague warning about the future that I wasn't really paying attention to. We all went back to sleep, but not before the guy with blue hair complimented me for my tactical skills. The next morning, we set off for the capital, and Sir Grumps-a-lot let me ride on his horse with him. It's not super comfortable, but it's better than walking, and it gives me time to write this journal entry. All in all, they're pretty nice people._

 _This time, I'll try to remember their names._

 _~James Something_


	3. Chapter 3

_..._

 _April 4, 2611_

 _Ok, to start off this entry, I'd like to say that, yes, I was right. The whole "Shepherds" thing was indeed a metaphor. Also, Mr. Blue Hair? Turns out he was the prince, which explains why he expected me to know who he was. He took me to see his_ other _sister, who was the queen-sorry, the exalt-of the country, which, if I remember correctly, is called Yilissay. We met up with her, and he told her he was inviting me into his metaphorical vigilante group. (Actually, are they really vigilantes? Emma Lin seems to be OK with it.) Mrs. Queen said that was fine by her, even thought Dr. Grumps tried to convince her otherwise. After the meeting, we set off for the Shepherds' garrison. Along the way, I calculated that the best way to learn the names of these people was to pretend to have another bout of amnesia. With this in mind, I purposefully walked into a tree. After some confusion, I managed to learn that their names were...Chris (or something)...Liz (or something)...and...Benjamin? Bernald? Fenton? ...Freddy-bear? Whatever. Oh, and Red's name was Sully. Finally, a name I can remember. I'm not sure what makes it more distinct than the others, but it doesn't matter right now. Us five arrived at the barracks soon enough, and I was introduced to my other comrades. There was this uptight blueblood girl who was_ way _too invested in Lisa's safety, a girl who was obviously crushing on Chrome, a muscly guy with an axe, and a guy in full armor who was remarkable at not being noticed. Krom came in soon afterward and let us now that we were setting off for a country called Regena Ferox to ask for aid in fighting...either the zombie things, or whatever country Fernald said the bandits were from. We all promptly volunteered for the mission, and left soon after._

 _In about an hour, we discovered three predicaments: first, we had accidentally left without three of the Shepherds willing to come: the knight, a wizard lady, and another cavalier. Although the latter caught up to us at that time, the other two did not. Second, Muscles left his axe back at the base. All in all, that left me with a mere 8 soldiers, half of which were severely hampered in usefulness due to being extremely overpowered, lacking combat experience or a weapon, or being really terrible. Third, we were just attacked by a gaggle of zombies-also known as Risen, apparently-with said sparse army. Luckily, the wizardess came back with Mister Teacher's (as he likes to call himself) axe after a quick round of synchronized murder, boosting our numbers by an effective two. We fought our way to the leader of the undead crew, stabbed him several times, and burned him not-alive, courtesy of Mirion. We cleaned up after ourselves, and started marching again._

 _Along the way, I had the chance to chat with Sully, since I figured I might as well socialize with the one person whose name I can remember. We talked a bit about how we joined the Shepherds; I learned that she, as a noble, would eventually be granted the title of knight. Of course, being the tough girl she is, she wanted to earn her title by upholding her responsibilities as a Shepherd. It made my story about being found laying on the ground with no memory seem a little dull in comparison. At the end of the day, we set up camp, (with tents and everything!) and I wrote in my journal until I went to bed. Actually, that isn't true; I wrote the whole sentence in the past tense, but the very last part should technically be in the future tense. In fact, I haven't actually_ stopped _writing in my journal..._

 _..._

 _Goodnight._

 _~James Iforget_

 _..._


	4. Chapter 4

_April 5, 2611_

 _You won't believe what happened this morning, journal! So, I was minding my own business, dreaming about this buff blue-haired dude, when Eliza came up and poured a glass of water on my face! Not only that, but she had the audacity to tell me that she had spilled ink all over the book of historical battles that I woke up on the ground with! I hadn't even finished it yet! She gave me a halfhearted apology that I was not in the mood to accept, and I promptly left to have some of the stew Stahl made for breakfast. After everyone had eaten, we packed up the camping supplies (Rodrick carried most of it, since I didn't expect him to see much combat) and set off once again for Serena Ferox. Along the way, we stumbled upon a very ornery pegasus, which Flops immediately took a liking to. Good for her. We marched for another three or so hours until we ended up at this place that Chrono said was called the Longfort. The soldier guarding it mistook us for brigands and set a bunch of archers on us, but the girl with the pegasus swooped in and dramatically saved our blue-haired friend, dropped him off, and immediately got shot down. Oh well, she didn't look that useful anyway. She wasn't that strong, and it wasn't like her mount could let her move twice in one round of combat...as an aside, I noticed that the knight from the Shepherd's garrison had finally caught up to us and was hanging around on the left side of the fort's exterior. I sent Comb over to him to let him know that I was the one giving the orders and told him to attack a nearby archer once he started listening. I'd tell you what happened during the rest of the battle, but...I can't remember for the life of me. I do recall that Mrs. Guardy-girl took us to see the khan, who agreed to give us assistance against...whoever if we helped her claim full power in an arena battle. So I said to her, "Florina, if you think that we're going to go out of our way to fight for sport (and for some power dispute)...then you are right."_

 _And then she just says "My name is Flavia."_

 _Then I say "Very well; my apologies Fiona, ma'm."_

 _I hope Chrom tells me what happened in the arena when he picks me up from the dungeon._

 _~James Thebloodisrushingtomyheadfrombeingheldupsidedowninthisdungeon_


	5. Chapter 5

_April 6, 2116_

 _Sure enough, Chrom came over after the bloody battle to the knock-out to get me out of prison. Thankfully, they had already talked to Farina, so I avoided another confrontation with her. Man, she is really sensitive! I'm well aware that I can be a bit hard to deal with at times, but you don't get thrown in the dungeon for forgetting someone's name and overestimating their age. Anyway, Coco filled me in on the details: it turns out he ended up fighting "Marth," who had a copy of his sword. I didn't know what to make of that fact until he told me that she had been tought her fighting skills "by her father." With these new findings, I was able to formulate a theory on Marth's origins._

 _You ready?_

 _Marth is Chrom's daughter from the future._

 _She has his sword, and her suspiciously similar fighting style was learned from her dear old dad. When Lisa first met her, she had fallen out of a giant portal in the sky and given a cryptic warning about "the further ahead of us." Plus, she has the same blue hair. While I'd usually dismiss time travel as a hackneyed plot device, that's what I (assumably) did before, and look where it got me._

 _Of course, I didn't have time to dwell on things like that, I had important matters to attend to: creating a tactical strategy game. Now, I wanted to make it as realistic as possible, so that I could use it to practice strategizing in the downtime. I thought up eight different stats to effect combat (health, strength, magic, skill, speed, defense, and resistance), as well as various different classes to include. Some of the ones I thought about Cavaliers (balanced lance/sword wielders on horseback), Fighters (axe users with lots of health and strength, but not much else), Mages (physically frail magicians), and Clerics (healers who can't fight back). I was going to ask some of the shepherds-Kellam and Maribelle, especially-but I couldn't find either of them. Oh, well._

 _I decided to write this entry early, so I could spend the rest of the day working on my game. After all, it was shaping up to be a pretty lazy day. I mean, what else could happen?_

 _~James Blahblahblah_

Author's Note: Chapter 4 is what else could happen.


	6. Chapter 6

_April 7_

 _...I...don't really want to talk about what happened yesterday. Then again, I can't say I have much of a choice, so...here we go._

 _It was a massacre._

 _It started out decently...we learned that Lissa's friend from the Shepherds had been captured by Plegian bandits, and Emmeryn wanted us to come along with her to parley with their ruler, "Mad King Grangrel." We traveled to a mountainous border pass between Yylysse and Plegia, and the king blathered on about how Maria Bell "invaded their territory" and "injured the noble soldiers who sought only to bring her home." Do you not realize that she's a defenseless Troubadour, Mongrel? He demanded the sacred treasure known as the Fire Emblem as recompense, but Emmeryn refused. He sent some Barbarians after her, but Chrom easily cut them down. The king's...sidekick, I suppose, went over to kill Mary Bella, but this Mage kid that Chrom wouldn't let come with us saved her. We got in our battle positions, and I was confident we could defeat these Plegians without too much trouble._

 _Then...the slaughter began._

 _I immediately had Lissa run over to the right to rescue her friend from the cliff above. The mage tried to follow her down, but a Wyvern Rider swooped over and cut him down..._

 _...I never even learned his name._

 _I tried to tell myself it was all right. We already had a Mage, and she was turning out even better than him at the moment. However, I couldn't forget that he was practically a_ child _, out here in a war zone, and I got him killed._

 _...I had Fredrick ride up a path to block off the Plegian soldiers from coming down to us. Of course, I forgot about the Wyvern Knight, and..._

 _Well, I'll just say that we don't have any Mages anymore._

 _Chrom tells me I became unresponsive right about then. That makes sense, since the rest of the battle was a blur. I'm not sure why my systems shut down like that. Maybe I was blaming myself for their deaths, and my mind couldn't handle all the guilt. Maybe I subconsciously realized that the army would be better off without me, and I decided to take that matter into my own hands._

 _Maybe I was just a really sore loser. I don't know. What I do know is that, without any guidance, Vaike charged right at some Dark Mages, without support, without even a ranged weapon..._

 _Fighters generally don't have good magical resistance, you see._

 _We ended up winning the battle, by the way...if you could call it that. Heavy casualties, and we just started a war, to boot._

 _...last night, I made myself a promise. I would never again let one of my soldiers die in battle. No matter what happened, I would make sure they all came back, safe and alive!_

 _Then Lisaa dropped a toad down my back. Way to ruin the moment._

 _~James Helpmeeee_


	7. Chapter 7

_April 8, 2116_

 _After the tragic events of two days before, I spent most of yesterday wallowing and proceeded to write the next entry, make my resolution, etc., etc...Now, today, I made some connections and finished the basics of my strategy game. Now...for detail!_

 _Following breakfast, I returned to my quarters in the barracks and devised all the formulas to be used in the game: Hit is weapon accuracy+Skillx2, Avoid is Speedx2, Critical Rate is Skill/2+Weapon Critical Rate, Critical Dodge is Luck, and Attack is Strength/Magic (whichever is applicable) + weapon might. The different weapons have different effects, but this is just the prototype; for now, we'll stick to weapons made of iron, which will be the average baseline for all weapon types. I also invited Marianna over to discuss some classes, like I wanted to. She suggested "Troubadours," which were basically Clerics, but on horses. I would have informed her that mounted healers are not minstrels, but I couldn't think of anything better for a name, so I obliged her. Anyway, I created base stats for all the classes, set up a map and two armies, and invited Chrom to battle me._

 _He was...a bit of a pushover. His strategy consisted of waiting until I was in range and then mindlessly charging at me. All I had to do was strategically place a Knight at each chokepoint (with a some Archers for ranged support and Clerics for heals) and watch as each soldier attacked the Knight (dealing minimal damage) and subsequently was picked off by the Archers. His formation meant that he couldn't even use his Clerics to heal! This is why you're the commander, and I'm the Tactician, Chrom._

 _Having honed my strategies, I decided the next order of business was to hone my battle prowess. Fredricson had set up a daily training/sparring activity (he called it "Freddrick's Fanatical Fitness Power," or something like that), and today was the first session. Me, Sully, Stahl, Chrom, and Loncwa were all present, and Kellog_ might _have been there, but I never noticed him. We started out with some warm-ups: stretches, push-ups, and the occasional sit-up. It was...exhausting. Luckily, our 5-minute post-warm-up break was a sufficient period of time for me to regain my energy. Next, Frodrick split us up into groups of two to spar: Sully was with Stahl, I was with Chrys, and Lonk either practiced his movements into the air or sparred with Callum. I'm still not sure._

 _Of the four matches each pair did, Sully beat Stahl 3-1, I_ think _Lo'nq'u tied with Caillou, and Chrom beat me 5-0. My performance was so poor that Fred made me stay afterwards for extra instruction. Well,_ excuse me _for being better at magic! I'm the only tome user left in this army, and only one of many sword users;_ sorry _for being better at my_ unique _niche than one we don't even need more of! It took several hours for him to feel like I was up to speed. I felt like I was going to die by the end of it. At the very least, I improved enough that I could beat him when he was holding back..._

 _When we finally finished, I plopped straight into bed and napped until dinner. Although_ someone _kept me from taking a lunch break during training, Stahl had made a big pot of spaghetti for dinner (with some optional cheese sauce) that was_ the most delicious thing I can ever remember having in my entire life. _Following dinner, I retired to my quarters to realize that my nap had replenished my energy enough so that I was too awake to go to bed. Thankfully, that's where you come into play, diary! Reading and writing at night always makes me sufficiently tired. Sometimes, I even feel like I'm going to fall asleep right in the middle of a sen_


End file.
